Ehud Barak's surprise resignation

Updated
November 27, 2012 09:08:00

Israel's defence minister Ehud Barak has quit the Likud led coalition government. Barak, a former Labor Prime Minister is considered a moderate. There are concerns prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will replace him with a hard liner.

TONY EASTLEY: Israel's defence minister Ehud Barak, a close ally of the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has stunned observers by announcing he's quitting his job just months before elections.

But the decision by the 70-year-old veteran politician to quit the coalition has raised speculation he may not be quitting politics altogether.

Correspondent Norman Hermant is in Jerusalem.

Norman Hermant, good morning. So what has Ehud Barak, the one-time Labour leader said about his decision to quit the coalition?

NORMAN HERMANT: Well certainly a surprise announcement here in Israel. Safe to say most of the political establishment was stunned by the news. He simply said that the tried and true excuse of wanting to spend more time with his family and said that he has others way to contribute to the country, not just politics, and he's left it at that.

TONY EASTLEY: Ideologically the two men Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu weren't all that close but they did forge a very good working relationship, did they?

NORMAN HERMANT: They did. I think it is fair to say in this particular government Benjamin Netanyahu has come to- Netanyahu has come to trust Ehud Barak very much.

Ideologically they're not that alike at all, actually. In fact through his career when Ehud Barak was prime minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001 he gained a reputation of being a real moderate, someone who was willing to talk peace despite the fact he'd been in the military for more than 30 years.

And that actually wound up costing him the election. In 2001 he was defeated soundly by hardliner Ariel Sharon.

So he did have a reputation of being this moderate but somehow it seemed to work, serving with Benjamin Netanyahu in his cabinet as defence minister. Netanyahu, of course is famous for being a hawk but somehow they were able to sort of work closely together.

TONY EASTLEY: As you say he was seen as a moderate. As defence minister and now as a former defence minister, will his replacement come from the harder Right, do you think? Is this a move that we are likely to see?

NORMAN HERMANT: It could be likely and that is something that people are very concerned because of the timing of all this is very curious.

First of all in the last couple of days the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu's party, has been having a political primaries where they choose their list for the upcoming election - that is, the candidates who are going to run for the Knesset. And there is a lot of concern that the way that the party structure is set up that they are going to be more Right-leaning members, hard Right members. And that is something the party is concerned about because they don't want to lurch too far in that direction, and I think there is some concern that obviously losing Mr Barak from the coalition could once again push that party, the perception of that coalition, even further to the right. They won't have that moderating influence in the new cabinet.